Exploring Ethics and Gender in Corporate Organisations in a Caribbean Context: Does Gender Truly Matter?

BUSINESS ethics; GENDER; RESEARCH ethics; ELECTRON work function

Business ethics is the branch of ethics which is concerned with the determination of right and wrong behaviour in a commercial context (Cowell 2007). In the Caribbean, the need to be ethical in business is just as important as in any other setting. This article is primarily concerned with reviewing the state of the literature addressing the influence of gender on ethical decision-making within the Caribbean context with the intent of proposing a direction for future work on the area within corporate settings. This paper discusses ethical decisionmaking theories, reviews the research literature on the influence of gender on ethical decision-making, and explores the ethical decisionmaking of leaders and employees in cases of failure in Caribbean organisations. It concludes with the recognition that the absence of gender analysis in ethics research especially in corporate settings is a limitation which needs to be addressed given the far-reaching consequences of such behaviour for the proper functioning of work organisations, the economy and the society as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]